Milani Liquid Metal Intense Color Nail Lacquer Collection

This six-shaded limited edition collection is perfect for summer, and it’s even better for the nail polish addict on a budget. Each polish is $4.49 and available at CVS through July 2010.

Melt Down is a deep ruby red base with flecks of brighter ruby red glitter-shimmer. When you move your hands, you can also see a glimmer of a coppery-red shimmer, too. It only needed two coats.

Melt With U is a rich, liquid lava orange-red with orange shimmer. It only needed two coats.

Metal Gear is fantastic tangerine orange with flecks of gold and orange glitter-shimmer. It keeps the theme going — just two coats here.

Melt In the Sun is a sunrise gold with flecks of brighter gold and deeper amber gold. For some reason, I didn’t snap a photo of this shade with flash, so I’ll describe it instead — brighter, lighter yellow gold with a metallic flash. I found this one to be more of a three-coater.

Molten Rock is a deep sea blue with just a touch of darkened teal and lighter blue-teal glitter-shimmer. I thought this shade looked particularly metallic under bright lights. Just two coats here.

Hot Metal is a reddened purple with brighter fuchsia-pink and deeper violet purple shimmer strewn through the pinky-purple base. This is such a pretty shade, but it was the most troublesome of the six. I found you had to use at least three coats, but those who use thinner coats may find a fourth necessary. The base color is a lot redder than I expected, and it almost looked jelly-ish, but it’s not quite.

Overall, I really enjoyed these! They were easy to apply — just did my “Temptalia” method (LOL!) and didn’t encounter any streakiness, patchiness, or issues with getting the shimmer/glitter to go on evenly. This feels like a microglitter to me, rather than a shimmer or a glitter. They dry pretty smooth, even without a top coat, but they lose some of the glossiness (but not all of it).

Some of these had more of a metallic look than others, but I don’t think any of these are true metallics–which isn’t a bad thing, since many metallics show glaring brushstrokes–in formula. They do flash a bit metallic-like though, especially Metal Gear, Melt In the Sun, and Molten Rock.

The formula felt thinner than the average polish, but five of the six shades had no pigmentation issues (only Hot Metal was iffy by three coats)–four of the six needed just two coats for rich, opaque color.

Have you spotted these at your local CVS yet? Any catch your eye?

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